Modification of cortical electrical activity in stroke survivors with abnormal subjective visual vertical: An eLORETA study.

Objectives: Balance impairment is among the main complications of stroke. The gravity-based subjective vertical (SV) is considered an important reference for upright posture and navigation affected by stroke. The correlation between injury location and pathological perception of verticality remains controversial. This study aimed to evaluate the cortico-cortical network of vertical perception among patients with the right hemisphere stroke and abnormal visual-vertical perception compared with healthy individuals. Materials and methods: This observational cross-sectional study included 40 patients with the right hemisphere stroke and 35 healthy participants. All patients had abnormal visual-vertical perception. The EEG connectivity analysis was conducted through the exact low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography analysis (eLORETA). Results: Stroke survivors manifested a power spectral density that reduced within the beta-2 frequency band in the left hemisphere and increased within the beta-3 frequency band in the right hemisphere compared with controls (p < 0.01). The lagged-phase synchronization was increased within alpha-1, beta-2, and beta-3 bands and decreased in stroke survivors compared with controls in the vestibular network involved in visual-vertical perception (p < 0.01). Conclusion: The results of this study demonstrated variations in the function and functional connectivity of cortical areas involved in the visual-vertical perception that are mainly located in the vestibular cortex.

Executive Functions and Public Health: A Narrative Review.

Executive functions (EFs) skills are necessary for regulating the thoughts, emotions, and actions which are associated with many aspects of daily functioning. Executive dysfunction (EDFs) is present in a wide range of mental disorders. New study indicates that EFs may predict health behavior and make it easier to engage in a variety of healthy activities. In this narrative review, EFs and public health are briefly discussed. In general, 133 articles met the inclusion criteria (published 2018-2023) which were reviewed. EFs affect the mental and physical health. Besides individual problems, people with mental problems have heavy costs to society. Mental health cannot be considered separately from general health. Consequently, preventive and therapeutic approaches to mental health should be considered not only at the level of the whole society, but also at the global level.

Reliability, validity, and diagnostic accuracy of Parkinson's Disease-Cognitive Rating Scale in Iranian patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease.

PURPOSE: To investigate the reliability and validity of Parkinson's Disease-Cognitive Rating Scale (PD-CRS) in Iranian patients with idiopathic PD. METHODS: One hundred and eighty patients with PD and 60 age-, gender-, and educational level-matched healthy individuals participated in this study. Inter-rater and test-retest reliability of the Persian version of PD-CRS was investigated in 80 patients with PD. To evaluate the construct validity of the PD-CRS, its correlation with the Scales for Outcomes in Parkinson's disease-Cognition (SCOPA-Cog), Mini-Mental State Examination, Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Clock Drawing Test, Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale-Section I, and Quick Dementia Rating System was assessed. To assess the diagnostic accuracy of the PD-CRS, patients with PD were classified as groups with normal cognitive function, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and dementia using the Clinical Dementia Rating. RESULTS: Test-retest and inter-rater reliability (ICC > 0.90), as well as internal consistency (α = 0.94) of the Persian version of PD-CRS, were excellent. A high positive correlation was found between the PD-CRS and SCOPA-Cog. A cut-off point of ≤79 (sensitivity 98.15% and specificity 98.04%) and ≤62 (sensitivity 100%, and specificity 100%) on the PD-CRS total score was obtained for detecting MCI and dementia in PD patients, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study showed that the Persian version of PD-CRS is a reliable and valid measure with high sensitivity and specificity to identify MCI and dementia in patients with PD.Implications for rehabilitationThe PD-CRS has an excellent test-retest and inter-rater reliability and validity in Iranian patients with PD.The PD-CRS has high sensitivity and specificity for discriminating between different levels of cognitive impairment (i.e. no cognitive impairment, mild cognitive impairment, and dementia) in Iranian patients with PD.

P-MMR and LDN beside MMN as Speech-evoked Neural Markers in Children with Cochlear Implants: A Review.

This review mainly explores less-reported neural markers to speech-evoked contrasts in children with cochlear implants (CI). Databases and electronic journals were searched with keywords of "mismatch responses" AND "positive mismatch response" (p-MMR) AND "late discriminate negativity" (LDN). P-MMR likely is as a measurement of brain immaturity in CI children while the developmental trajectories of LDN remain unexplained in older CI children. In CI children, there is a p-MMR-MMN-LDN sequence to speech stimuli developmentally. Whereas these aforementioned neural responses anticipate developmental changes in CI groups, it is still uncertain about the cutoff age for disappearance of p-MMR and LDN.

Examining memory performance in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD): A comparison study with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

The aim of this study is comparing directly the BDD and OCD disorders in terms of similarities and differences in memory function for the first time. 19 BDD patients, 15 OCD patients and 26 individuals in a healthy control group were recruited from three hospitals in Tehran. They were administered the following subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scale: logical memory (immediate and delayed), verbal paired association (immediate and delayed), digit span and spatial span as well as the Rey-Osterrieth complex figure test (RCFT). The results showed that BDD and OCD groups had lower performance in comparison to the control group across all measures, except for the immediate memory of the verbal paired associate task, which was similar across the three groups. Both the BDD and OCD groups showed poor performance on the auditory-verbal memory tasks. However, only the BDD group showed poor performance in the visual domain (i.e. spatial span and RCFT). This suggest that memory deficits are similar between BDD and OCD patients in the verbal domain. Furthermore, BDD patients demonstrated poorer visual working memory. The findings of this study reveal that BDD and OCD patients have more similarities than differences regarding neuropsychological features, in other words, the idea of the incorporation of BDD within the obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (OCRDs) spectrum in DSM-5 is supported, at least through the viewpoint of neuropsychology.

Comparison of the analgesic effect of oral sucrose and/or music in preterm neonates: A double-blind randomized clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the analgesic effects of sucrose, music, and their combination on venipuncture's pain in preterm neonates. METHODOLOGY: A double-blinded randomized control trial conducted at a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) in Tehran, Iran. One hundred and twenty preterm neonates were randomly allocated into three experimental (sucrose, music and combination of sucrose and music) and one control groups (n = 30 for each group). Two minutes before the venipuncture, 0.5 ml of oral 24% sucrose was provided for the sucrose and combination groups. The combination group additionally received lullaby music as same as the music group. The control group had headphones without playing music and received sterile water. Blinded assessment of the Premature Infant Pain Profile (PIPP) was performed before and during venipuncture, as well as 30 s and 10 min and 10 min after its completion. RESULTS: The pain scores during venipuncture in the sucrose and combination groups were significantly lower than the control group (p = .003, p < .001, respectively) but not in the music group. Thirty seconds after the end of the venipuncture, the pain score in the three intervention groups was significantly lower than the control group (sucrose, music and, combination group, p < .001, p = .009, p < .001, respectively). Ten min after the venipuncture, there was no significant difference in pain scores among the four groups. CONCLUSION: Music could relief pain 30 s after the venipuncture completion but not during the venipuncture. A more prolonged period of playing music is recommended to evaluate the analgesic effects of music in preterm neonates in future studies.

Comprehension of Complex Sentences in the Persian-Speaking Patients With Aphasia.

INTRODUCTION: To study sentence comprehension in Persian-speaking Patients with Aphasia considering the factors of complexity. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, the performance of 6 non-fluent aphasic patients were tested and their performance was compared to 15 matched control group. Comprehension of semantically reversible sentences was assessed using a binary sentence-picture matching task. The stimuli were as follows: clefts; subject clefts and object clefts, also relative clauses; subject relatives and object relatives. All of them were types of movement-derived structures and also simple declarative sentences as the control task. RESULTS: The best performance of aphasic patients were seen in the comprehension of subject clefts, although prior to this result we assumed that simple declarative sentences (in which there is no structural factor of complexity) can be understood easily. They showed the highest difficulty in the comprehension of object relatives. Furthermore, the performance of patients in the comprehension of relative clauses was significantly weaker than understanding the clefts. CONCLUSION: The outcomes of this study suggest that the sentence comprehension deficits of aphasic patients, in contrast to the specific deficit models, may not be related to linguistic disabilities. Moreover, the problems in the comprehension of non-canonical sentences may be related to failure in the allocation of attention. Finally, our results support the claims that neural characterization of the cognitive resources (e.g. working memory) is disrupted in sentence comprehension deficits.

Evaluation of Central Auditory Processing of Azeri-Persian Bilinguals Using Dichotic Listening Tasks in First and Second Languages.

OBJECTIVES: Sometimes there is no hearing impairment, but it is possible to have an auditory disorder. This is known as a central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). Speech dichotic tasks are useful tools to evaluate CAPD, but there is almost no tool to assess this for Azeri people in their native language. The aim of this study was to evaluate central auditory processing of Azeri participants by Azeri dichotic digit test (ADDT). MATERIALS & METHODS: Participants were 52 normal Iranian Azeri students (mean age 23.27± 4.71; 26 females, 26 males) in the Department of Audiology, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran in 2016. They were chosen by convenient sampling. ADDT was constructed and administered in free recall conditions along with a Persian dichotic digit test (PDDT). After two to four weeks, reliability was performed. RESULTS: The mean of the right ear score of PDDT and ADDT was 98.90% and 99.09%, respectively. ADDT was reliable in almost all scores. There was no significant difference in performance between men and women in any score of both tests (P>0.05). The results showed a significant difference between both ears' scores in PDDT (P<0.02) as well as in ADDT (P=0.00). The right ear advantage was seen in both tests. CONCLUSION: All participants performed significantly better on digits presented in the right ear than the left ear in both tests. Central auditory processing of Azeri participants for Azeri is similar to that for Persian.

Impact of age and obstacle negotiation on timing measures of gait initiation.

INTRODUCTION: The separate and combined impacts of age and walkway obstruction on reaction time, anticipatory postural adjustment phases of gait initiation and cognitive dual task performance are not well understood. This study aimed to a) examine the impact of age and task complexity on reaction and anticipatory postural adjustment phases separately b) examine the impact of age and walkway obstruction on cognitive task performance while walking. METHOD: Nineteen older adults (mean age± SD: 66.73 ± 3.38 years) and twelve younger adults (mean age± SD: 26.5 ± 4.37 years), participated in this study. The tests were performed in four conditions: a smooth walkway; a smooth walkway with concurrent cognitive task; an obstructed walkway; and an obstructed walkway with a concurrent cognitive task. Reaction and anticipatory postural adjustment phases were measured from the recorded center of pressure trajectory data. RESULTS: Reaction time phase was significantly longer in the older group (P = 0.04), but there was no significant impact of task complexity (P = 0.95). Conversely, there was a significant impact of task complexity on anticipatory postural adjustment phase (P = 0.04), but there was no significant difference between the age groups (P = 0.38). Cognitive task response time was not significantly different between age groups or with walkway obstruction (P = 0.19 and P = 0.90 respectively).There were no significant interactions between age group and task complexity. CONCLUSION: Reaction time phase but not anticipatory postural adjustment phase was longer in healthy older than younger adults. Anticipatory postural adjustment phase but not reaction time phase was slower for more complex gait initiation tasks. Cognitive task performance was similar across age groups and conditions.

A prospective study of psychomotor performance of driving among two kinds of shift work in Iran.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Driving after a night shift imposes a risk on health care professionals and other road users. The aim of this study was to measure psychomotor performance of driving of night shift nurses compared to day-shift nurses. METHODS: Forty-seven volunteer female nurses working at Sina hospital in Tehran, Iran, with a call in all departments of hospital, participated in this study (23 night shift and 24 day shift nurses) in 2016. The tests included RT for simple reaction time, ATAVT for perceptual speed, LVT for visual orientation and ZBA for time anticipation. Data collection tools were individual characteristics, 11-item circadian type inventory (CTI), Stanford sleepiness scale (SSS), and Swedish occupational fatigue inventory (SOFI-20) questionnaires. Psychomotor driving performance was assessed using validated computerized traffic psychological battery of Vienna Test System (VTS), before and after the shifts. Data analysis was performed using paired-samples t-test and Linear Regression. RESULTS: The mean age of day and night-shift nurses were 31.4±5.6 and 28.7±3.9 years respectively, no significant difference between two groups. Thirty percent of night shift and 16.7% of day shift nurses reported traffic accidents in the past year. The results revealed that, scores based on viewing times in visual orientation test (p=0.005), and median reaction time score in choice reaction time and reactive stress tolerance test (p=0.045), had a significant association with a 12-hour night shift with a 3-hour nap. CONCLUSIONS: Twelve-hour night shift work impairs choice reaction time and visual orientation in nurses, even though they take a 3- hour nap during the shift. These skills are required for safe driving.

Developing the Persian version of the homophone meaning generation test.

BACKGROUND: Finding the right word is a necessity in communication, and its evaluation has always been a challenging clinical issue, suggesting the need for valid and reliable measurements. The Homophone Meaning Generation Test (HMGT) can measure the ability to switch between verbal concepts, which is required in word retrieval. The purpose of this study was to adapt and validate the Persian version of the HMGT. METHODS: The first phase involved the adaptation of the HMGT to the Persian language. The second phase concerned the psychometric testing. The word-finding performance was assessed in 90 Persian-speaking healthy individuals (20-50 year old; 45 males and 45 females) through three naming tasks: Semantic Fluency, Phonemic Fluency, and Homophone Meaning Generation Test. The participants had no history of neurological or psychiatric diseases, alcohol abuse, severe depression, or history of speech, language, or learning problems. RESULTS: The internal consistency coefficient was larger than 0.8 for all the items with a total Cronbach's alpha of 0.80. Interrater and intrarater reliability were also excellent. The validity of all items was above 0.77, and the content validity index (0.99) was appropriate. The Persian HMGT had strong convergent validity with semantic and phonemic switching and adequate divergent validity with semantic and phonemic clustering. CONCLUSION: The Persian version of the Homophone Meaning Generation Test is an appropriate, valid, and reliable test to evaluate the ability to switch between verbal concepts in the assessment of word-finding performance.

Effect of signal to noise ratio on the speech perception ability of older adults.

BACKGROUND: Speech perception ability depends on auditory and extra-auditory elements. The signal- to-noise ratio (SNR) is an extra-auditory element that has an effect on the ability to normally follow speech and maintain a conversation. Speech in noise perception difficulty is a common complaint of the elderly. In this study, the importance of SNR magnitude as an extra-auditory effect on speech perception in noise was examined in the elderly. METHODS: The speech perception in noise test (SPIN) was conducted on 25 elderly participants who had bilateral low-mid frequency normal hearing thresholds at three SNRs in the presence of ipsilateral white noise. These participants were selected by available sampling method. Cognitive screening was done using the Persian Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) test. RESULTS: Independent T- test, ANNOVA and Pearson Correlation Index were used for statistical analysis. There was a significant difference in word discrimination scores at silence and at three SNRs in both ears (p≤0.047). Moreover, there was a significant difference in word discrimination scores for paired SNRs (0 and +5, 0 and +10, and +5 and +10 (p≤0.04)). No significant correlation was found between age and word recognition scores at silence and at three SNRs in both ears (p≥0.386). CONCLUSION: Our results revealed that decreasing the signal level and increasing the competing noise considerably reduced the speech perception ability in normal hearing at low-mid thresholds in the elderly. These results support the critical role of SNRs for speech perception ability in the elderly. Furthermore, our results revealed that normal hearing elderly participants required compensatory strategies to maintain normal speech perception in challenging acoustic situations.

Comparing the production of complex sentences in Persian patients with post-stroke aphasia and non-damaged people with normal speaking.

BACKGROUND: Cerebrovascular disease leading to stroke is the most common cause of aphasia. Speakers with agrammatic non-fluent aphasia have difficulties in production of movement-derived sentences such as passive sentences, topicalized constituents, and Wh-questions. To assess the production of complex sentences, some passive, topicalized and focused sentences were designed for patients with non-fluent Persian aphasic. Afterwards, patients' performance in sentence production was tested and compared with healthy non-damaged subjects. METHODS: In this cross sectional study, a task was designed to assess the different types of sentences (active, passive, topicalized and focused) adapted to Persian structures. Seven Persian patients with post-stroke non-fluent agrammatic aphasia (5 men and 2 women) and seven healthy non-damaged subjects participated in this study. The computed tomography (CT) scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed that all the patients had a single left hemisphere lesion involved middle cerebral artery (MCA), Broca`s area and in its white matter. In addition, based on Bedside version of Persian Western Aphasia Battery (P-WAB-1), all of them were diagnosed with moderate Broca aphasia. Then, the production task of Persian complex sentences was administered. RESULTS: There was a significant difference between four types of sentences in patients with aphasia [Degree of freedom (df) = 3, P < 0.001]. All the patients showed worse performance than the healthy participants in all the four types of sentence production (P < 0.050). CONCLUSION: In general, it is concluded that topicalized and focused sentences as non-canonical complex sentences in Persian are very difficult to produce for patients with agrammatic non-fluent aphasia. It seems that sentences with A-movement are simpler for the patients than sentences involving A`-movement; since they include shorter movements in compare to topicalized and focused sentences.

Validity and Reliability of Published Comprehensive Theory of Mind Tests for Normal Preschool Children: A Systematic Review.

OBJECTIVE: Theory of mind (ToM) or mindreading is an aspect of social cognition that evaluates mental states and beliefs of oneself and others. Validity and reliability are very important criteria when evaluating standard tests; and without them, these tests are not usable. The aim of this study was to systematically review the validity and reliability of published English comprehensive ToM tests developed for normal preschool children. METHOD: We searched MEDLINE (PubMed interface), Web of Science, Science direct, PsycINFO, and also evidence base Medicine (The Cochrane Library) databases from 1990 to June 2015. Search strategy was Latin transcription of 'Theory of Mind' AND test AND children. Also, we manually studied the reference lists of all final searched articles and carried out a search of their references. Inclusion criteria were as follows: Valid and reliable diagnostic ToM tests published from 1990 to June 2015 for normal preschool children; and exclusion criteria were as follows: the studies that only used ToM tests and single tasks (false belief tasks) for ToM assessment and/or had no description about structure, validity or reliability of their tests. METHODological quality of the selected articles was assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP). RESULT: In primary searching, we found 1237 articles in total databases. After removing duplicates and applying all inclusion and exclusion criteria, we selected 11 tests for this systematic review. CONCLUSION: There were a few valid, reliable and comprehensive ToM tests for normal preschool children. However, we had limitations concerning the included articles. The defined ToM tests were different in populations, tasks, mode of presentations, scoring, mode of responses, times and other variables. Also, they had various validities and reliabilities. Therefore, it is recommended that the researchers and clinicians select the ToM tests according to their psychometric characteristics, validity and reliability.

The assessment of pragmatics in Iranian patients with right brain damage.

BACKGROUND: Pragmatics is appropriate use of language across a variety of social contexts that provides accurate interpretation of intentions. The occurrence of the right hemisphere lesions can interfere with pragmatic abilities, and particularly with the processing of nonliteral speech acts. METHODS: Since the objective of this study was to assess different aspects of pragmatic competence in the right hemisphere damage (RHD) patients, 20 Iranian patients with right hemisphere lesions were examined by adult pragmatic profile (APP) and a novel checklist was introduced for Persian language speaking individuals. Meanwhile, 40 healthy adult individuals, who were age and gender matched with RHD patients, were considered as the control group. After obtaining video records, all subjects were evaluated for 35 pragmatic skills, including 24 verbal, 5 paralinguistic, and 6 nonverbal aspects, by a two-point scale system. RESULTS: Studying RHD patients and their healthy counterparts revealed that the performance by participants with right hemisphere lesions exhibited a high degree of inappropriate pragmatic abilities compared with controls in all domains. Furthermore, RHD patients showed a trend of increasing difficulty in understanding and producing different pragmatic phenomena, including standard communication acts. CONCLUSION: Present results indicated that the right hemisphere lesions significantly affected pragmatic abilities in verbal, paralinguistic and nonverbal aspects. Such a pattern of performance, which is in line with deficits previously reported for RHD, proved the unquestioned role of the right hemisphere in processing nonliteral language.

Speech evoked auditory brainstem response in stuttering.

Auditory processing deficits have been hypothesized as an underlying mechanism for stuttering. Previous studies have demonstrated abnormal responses in subjects with persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) at the higher level of the central auditory system using speech stimuli. Recently, the potential usefulness of speech evoked auditory brainstem responses in central auditory processing disorders has been emphasized. The current study used the speech evoked ABR to investigate the hypothesis that subjects with PDS have specific auditory perceptual dysfunction. Objectives. To determine whether brainstem responses to speech stimuli differ between PDS subjects and normal fluent speakers. Methods. Twenty-five subjects with PDS participated in this study. The speech-ABRs were elicited by the 5-formant synthesized syllable/da/, with duration of 40 ms. Results. There were significant group differences for the onset and offset transient peaks. Subjects with PDS had longer latencies for the onset and offset peaks relative to the control group. Conclusions. Subjects with PDS showed a deficient neural timing in the early stages of the auditory pathway consistent with temporal processing deficits and their abnormal timing may underlie to their disfluency.

Insomnia in Iranian traditional medicine.

CONTEXT: Insomnia is one of the most prevalent sleep disorders characterized by sleep difficulty that impairs daily functioning and reduces quality of life. The burden of medical, psychiatric, interpersonal, and societal consequences of insomnia expresses the importance of diagnosing and treatment of insomnia. The aim of study was to investigate causes of insomnia from the viewpoint of Iranian traditional medicine. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: In this review study, we searched insomnia in a few of the most famous ancient textbooks of Iranian traditional medicine from different centuries. This books includeThe Canon of Medicine by Avicenna (the first version of Beirut), Zakhire Kharazmshahi by Jurjani (the scanned version of Bonyade Farhang-e Iran), Malfaregh by Razes (the first version of Iran University of Medical Sciences), and Aqili's cure by Aqili (the first version of Iran University of Medical Sciences). RESULTS: This study found that in Iranian traditional medicine manuscripts, insomnia was called sahar and even though many factors induce insomnia, most of them act through causing brain dystemperament. CONCLUSIONS: The brain dystemperament is considered one of the main causes of insomnia and insomnia can be well managed with an organized line of treatment, by correcting the brain dystemperament through elimination of causes. This study helps to find new solutions to treat insomnia.

Efficacy of Viola odorata in Treatment of Chronic Insomnia.

BACKGROUND: Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder that reduces quality of life. OBJECTIVES: Due to side effects of hypnotic drug and the increasing demand for alternative medicine substitutes, violet oil (VO) was used in this study. VO is a known medication in Iranian traditional medicine that induces sleep in insomniac patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This study was conducted as an experimental pretest-posttest evaluation on VO efficacy in 50 patients with chronic insomnia in Iranian Traditional Medicine Clinic of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran. Treatment consisted of intranasal drop of VO, two drops containing 66 mg of VO in each nostril nightly before sleeping for one month. All patients were asked to complete an Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) questionnaire before the start of the trial and after one month of treatment. RESULTS: Improvements in sleep and ISI scores were significantly greater in patients after a month receiving VO drop in comparison with before starting treatment (P < 0.05). A few patients reported some complications about VO consumption, most of which were mild and no serious adverse event was encountered. CONCLUSIONS: VO can be presented as a safe, well-tolerated, and effective herbal preparation in patients with chronic insomnia.

Effects of parental education level and economic status on the needs of families of hearing-impaired children in the aural rehabilitation program.

INTRODUCTION: The family of each hearing-impaired child has its own cultural, social, educational, and financial background, and its own special needs. The objectives of our study were to explore the information and support needs of parents of children with severe-to-profound hearing impairment and to investigate the effects of the parents' level of education and economic status on the score attained in the parents'-needs questionnaire. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty-one parents of children with severe-to-profound hearing loss (53% girls, 47% boys; mean age 47.96 months) who used the Auditory-Verbal Therapy approach were asked to complete the parents'-needs questionnaire. The questionnaire included demographic information and hearing-loss history and covered six domains which evaluated the information or support needs of parents. Parental needs with regard to different domains were evaluated separately in all participants. RESULTS: Statistical analysis indicated that there was a significant decrease in the score attained in the parents'-needs questionnaire with increasing level of education of the child's parents (P<0.0001). Furthermore, the questionnaire score decreased as the parents' economic status increased (P<0.0001). CONCLUSION: The results of our study indicate that most parents of hearing-impaired children need adequate and appropriate information in all domains, and these findings support the positive effect of creating an appropriate educational environment by considering individualized needs. Furthermore, parents' levels of education and economic status have a significant effect on their parents' needs.

Iranians' contribution to world literature on neuroscience.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to analyse Iranian scientific publications in the neuroscience subfields by librarians and neuroscientists, using Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) via Web of Science data over the period, 2002-2008. METHODS: Data were retrieved from the SCIE. Data were collected from the 'subject area' of the database and classified by neuroscience experts into 14 subfields. To identify the citation patterns, we applied the 'impact factor' and the 'number of publication'. Data were also analysed using HISTCITE, Excel 2007 and SPSS. RESULTS: Seven hundred and thirty-four papers have been published by Iranian between 2002 and 2008. Findings showed a growing trend of neuroscience papers in the last 3 years with most papers (264) classified in the neuropharmacology subfield. There were fewer papers in neurohistory, psychopharmacology and artificial intelligence. International contributions of authors were mostly in the neurology subfield, and 'Collaboration Coefficient' for the neuroscience subfields in Iran was 0.686 which is acceptable. Most international collaboration between Iranians and developed countries was from USA. Eighty-seven percent of the published papers were in journals with the impact factor between 0 and 4; 25% of papers were published by the researchers affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences. CONCLUSION: Progress of neuroscience in Iran is mostly seen in the neuropharmacology and the neurology subfields. Other subfields should also be considered as a research priority by health policymakers. As this study was carried out by the collaboration of librarians and neuroscientists, it has been proved valuable for both librarians and policymakers. This study may be encouraging for librarians from other developing countries.